Mother's plea to burglars

A Hamilton woman is hoping a plea to burglars who broke into her Pukete home and stole precious memorabilia of her dead daughter will lead to its return.

Natara Murray was nine years old when she was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer.

Natara's mother, Leslie who now lives in Hamilton, said they were living in Thames when Natara was diagnosed.

The community rallied round the family including her classmates who wrote their own special memories of Natara on both sides of a pink piece of A4 paper.

Mrs Murray had kept that piece of paper in a lap top bag which was stolen in the burglary of her Ashurst Ave home sometime between Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon.

"There's about 30 different things on it that the children had written about (Natara) when she got sick ... quite often I just got it out and would look at it ... it was just little things like 'you've got a lovely smile' or 'she's always willing to help' and 'always willing to play'. I'm never going to be able to remember what they've said and they're never going to be able to recreate it either."

Mrs Murray said it appeared the burglars had gained access to her home through her cat door and stolen a variety of items.

But it was just the piece of paper inside the bag that she wanted back.

"The people that do this don't think about the bigger picture, they're just after the cash or jewellery. It might only be one thing but to me it's massive, it's gutwrenching. I don't care about the laptop ... I'm just hoping if the piece of paper is still in the bag (burglars) could put it in an envelope and give it to police or someone else."